You are mostly buying sorting labour. The board comes along for the ride.
This page exists because used box pricing confuses almost everybody, and the confusion is nobody's fault — the obvious lever, order size, is genuinely the weakest of the six that matter.
Get a number
Postal code, size, grade and count will get you a price rather than a question.
Straight to the grading floor at 9869 Meeks Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63132.
Or email sales@reboxesmarket.com. We have no phone line — dimensions and counts survive much better in writing.
Not sure of the size?
Fold a box in the browser, read off the cube and pallet fit, and send the spec straight through.
What we actually pay for material
Very little, and sometimes nothing — a good proportion of our inbound comes from sites that were paying a hauler to take it away. That is the origin of the whole business and it is why the board itself barely features in a quote.
What costs money is everything that happens afterwards. A grader inspecting each container against nine points. Sorting into matched size runs. Counting rather than estimating. Bundling in twenty-fives and banding. Repairing what is worth repairing and re-grading it from scratch. Holding graded stock until somebody wants it.
Why one size is cheaper than nine
A grader handling a single size run processes a pallet in about nine minutes. The same grader splitting a mixed heap into nine size buckets, counting each run, bundling and banding takes closer to forty. Same board, same weight, four times the labour.
So consolidating your size list is usually worth more than any discount you will negotiate, and it is worth more than doubling your order. This is the single most useful thing on this page.
Why grade A costs more than it looks like it should
Grade A is 11 to 16 per cent of a typical inbound stream. To produce a pallet of it, a grader handles roughly seven pallets of material and routes the rest elsewhere. Grade A therefore carries the sorting cost of everything rejected to find it, which is why it prices at a premium rather than slightly above grade B.
What we will not do
- Quote a price without naming a grade. A price without a grade is a hope.
- Blend grade C into a grade B pallet and call the average honest.
- Sell you new board when a grade-A used container would do identical work.
- Take an order where the freight makes reuse more expensive than buying locally.
- Charge for diversion reporting. Charging for the evidence that a service worked is a strange business model.
Six things move the number, and volume is only the fourth.
Used box pricing confuses people because the obvious lever — how many you want — is among the weakest of the six. Spread is the gap between best and worst case on our own quote data.
| Factor | Spread | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Destination lane | 2.8× | Within-Midwest versus a long nationwide haul |
| Size-run consistency | 2.1× | A single matched size versus genuinely mixed sizes |
| Grade | 1.9× | Grade C versus grade A on the same size |
| Order volume | 1.3× | One pallet versus a full truckload, same lane and grade |
| Timing flexibility | 1.15× | Take-it-when-it-lands versus a fixed delivery date |
| Season | 1.1× | March versus October on the same lane |
| Line | Always stated? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Exact inside dimensions | Yes | Outside dimensions are the most common source of a wrong-size delivery |
| FEFCO style code | Yes | 0201 and 0203 behave very differently through reuse |
| Wall construction and test | Yes | Observed condition, not the printed certificate |
| Named grade with definition | Yes | The whole basis of the transaction |
| Piece count | Yes | Counted, not estimated, not 'approximately a pallet' |
| Photographs of the actual lot | Yes | Before you commit, not after |
| Freight, shown separately | Yes | So you can check it against the cube |
| Knocked-down cube and trailer count | Yes | The arithmetic behind the freight number |
| Lead time | Yes | From confirmed order, not from first email |
| Accessorials | Where applicable | Liftgate, limited access, inside delivery |
| Validity period | 14 days | Used stock turns constantly |
Supply and demand move in opposite directions for most of the year.
If you buy on a fixed monthly schedule you are riding across this blind. It is a pattern rather than a law — but there is a calendar, and most buyers do not know it exists.
| Period | Inbound supply | Outbound demand | Practical effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| January – February | Very high | Low | Best availability and price of the year |
| March – April | High | Moderate | Good availability; grade A plentiful |
| May – June | Moderate | Moderate | Balanced; agriculture starts pulling gaylords |
| July – August | Low | High | Tightening; lead times extend |
| September – October | Low | Very high | Tightest of the year |
| November – December | Rising | Falling | Availability recovers, grade quality dips |
Seven lines, and the two nobody counts.
Purchase price is the least interesting number in container economics. Damage caused by container failure is almost universally coded as handling damage, which hides the largest controllable line on the list.
| Cost line | Share of total | Commonly counted? |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase or rental | 34% | Always |
| Inbound freight | 9% | Usually |
| Storage and yard space | 11% | Rarely |
| Sorting and inspection labour | 14% | Rarely |
| Repair | 8% | Sometimes |
| Disposal of unusable units | 6% | Rarely |
| Product damage from container failure | 18% | Almost never |
Pricing questions we get.
Can you beat a quote I have from somebody else?
Possibly, but ask what grade they named first. If the answer is just 'used', you are comparing a specification against an adjective and the numbers are not comparable in either direction.
Why did the price change since last quarter?
Spot pricing moves with the OCC commodity market, with season, and with lane direction. A standing order fixes it for the term, which is one of its main attractions.
Do you do volume discounts?
Yes, and they are real but modest — about 1.3× spread between one pallet and a truckload on the same lane and grade. Geography and size-run consistency each move the number roughly twice as much.
Why is delivered pricing better for me?
Because on low-density freight an FOB price tells you almost nothing. The freight can be a third of the delivered cost and it varies by mode, lane and your dock. We would rather own that complexity than hand it to you.
Will you price-match on freight?
We will quote against your carrier if you prefer to arrange it, and give you the exact dimensions, weight and class to book against. Sometimes your contracted rate beats ours and we will tell you so.
Is reconditioned cheaper than used?
Usually slightly more, because it has had bench time. It is cheaper per trip, because it lasts longer. Which matters depends on whether you are buying a container or buying container-trips.